Last week the local chefs association announced there was going to be a black winter truffle hunt on outskirts of sydney (it is winter here by the way ) . I know they grow in lot of places but so far the ones from Perigord and provance were the most prized ones. I know lot of truffles from East Europe and Turkey are bought by Frech providores and labeled packed in FRANCE just like the case in "Italian Olive Oil" As a fact I have seen Chef friends of mine use Tennessee truffles , I have used chinese truffles (only 2 shifts , then... guys no more truffle risotto , this thing is S..T) Here in Australia , Western Australian ones from Manijump dominated the market and then truffles from Tasmania arrived. That was my limited truffle knowledge until this monday.. I had no idea there was a truffle are only 1,5 hours from Sydney where we would pick truffles like potatoes...
Here are the pictures of the trip.. Enjoy

View from the truffle farm
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Meet lily, our truffle dog. It is her second season hunting truffles , she is a mutt (kelpie+?) ,rescued from shelter from almost being put into sleep , lovely girl
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When the hunt starts the owner says: Lily , truffles and she goes..

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There are lot of places she digs and alerts the owner and each time she gets a treat, however if the truffle is ripe enough to being
harvested she gets two treats..

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If you start digging she knows there may be another treat so she will watch you and imply dont break my truffle and don't f... it up

and this beauty is coming home with me..
44 grams of 1st grade fresh black winter truffle for $$

If anybody is interested they will be doing a final tour within a week or two before the season ends.
It was a great experience for me and i will be posting pictures from my truffle dinner at home very soon. Now I need to go back and smell the jar of the trufle I have in the fridge. If anybody is interested these guys are selling online too , if you pm me I can give their info , I have no affiliations or interest from the grover whatsoever

Enjoy..

pkjames

07-30-2013, 12:05 AM

WoW, I was at the same place last sat. Was a qantas epiqure hosted event though. The potato leek soup was fabulous! $2/g for the top quality black truffle was not bad as well. I know you will tell me you paid a lot less again :curse:

chefcomesback

07-30-2013, 12:33 AM

What a coincidance !!
Well , i have paid little less but not by much .Also going there a group of chefs rather than Qantas' VIP event :tease: helped.
come on let me at least let me enjoy few perks of being in the industry :biggrin:

tkern

07-30-2013, 12:40 AM

Looks like a great experience and I'm sure very delicious.

scotchef38

07-30-2013, 05:55 AM

WoW, I was at the same place last sat. Was a qantas epiqure hosted event though. The potato leek soup was fabulous! $2/g for the top quality black truffle was not bad as well. I know you will tell me you paid a lot less again :curse:

$2 a gram , damn thats cheap.

pkjames

07-30-2013, 06:52 AM

pics from the same place, it was a really nice day!
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-4AzCltXqNFM/UfeauEq8cKI/AAAAAAAACWs/-Vr9LR0vyEs/w958-h719-no/IMG_0874.JPG

Holy s....!
what is the weight of it James?
It is awesome looking piece!!

pkjames

07-30-2013, 07:45 AM

Didn't join the weighting party, coz there were loads of food waiting for us when we finished the hunt.
Wagyu beef burger, truffle soup and the great yering station wine! It was definitely worth the trip, and surprisingly close to Sydney too. We also had Duncan Garvey (the original truffle guy from tassie) there showing us the how to hunt, and answered many questions. Learnt a lot about truffles!

Sadly, it seems like the owner is looking to sell the property. Hopefully the truffle farm will stay around and open its door to the public.

chefcomesback

07-30-2013, 07:57 AM

it is a tricky thing , I am sure they would like to sell more truffles but truffle farms being robbed overnight in France you dont want to expose your location.
Duncan was there too and he was nice , altough some of his decriptions sounded little too vague , maybe he thought our group may go into truffle business

stereo.pete

07-30-2013, 01:29 PM

Very cool, thanks for sharing!

Duckfat

07-31-2013, 05:48 AM

Very interesting. That must have been a blast. Here we forage for Morels in the spring. Thanks for sharing the photos and the day.

Dave

chefcomesback

08-03-2013, 01:27 AM

QUOTE=Duckfat;230065]Very interesting. That must have been a blast. Here we forage for Morels in the spring. Thanks for sharing the photos and the day.
Dave[/QUOTE]

Altough it was more like picking them rather hunt it was fun. Where else in US you can forage morels? a friend of mine found one in his garden in GA

Duckfat

08-04-2013, 04:12 PM

Morels grow in many states. All through out the mid-west and I know a few guys that forage in Oregon. I'm in Mi and I've picked Morels and ramps every spring as long as I can remember. We have a lot of state and Federal land here that any one can forage.

Dave

berko

08-04-2013, 08:45 PM

during my aprrenticeship i made a presentation about truffle. one fact that i will never forget is that the russians used to use bears to find truffles. only problem was to remove em from the bears mouth :D

AFKitchenknivesguy

08-04-2013, 09:47 PM

I really enjoyed this post/thread, thanks for sharing.

chefcomesback

08-05-2013, 10:23 AM

during my aprrenticeship i made a presentation about truffle. one fact that i will never forget is that the russians used to use bears to find truffles. only problem was to remove em from the bears mouth :D

Unfortunatelly it is common in Eastern europe and Balkans to see captured bears on the streets performing tricks to all the way professional circusses . When you mention those bears in contrary of what a bear image comes to your mind , they are more like a abused big ,lovely creatures without any dignity..
The way they teach them to "dance "is pretty cruel to , I don't want hijack my own thread but if anybody wonders I can expalin in detail in pm:sad0:

chefcomesback

08-05-2013, 10:25 AM

I really enjoyed this post/thread, thanks for sharing.

It was a pleasure Jason , probably tomorrow I will replicate one of my dishes from my restaurant menu using truffles , I will be posting that entire process too